And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded: And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The LORD is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law. But when they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them. And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries. And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity. Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded. And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD.

This is another of those passages which makes it clear that, in biblical times, the knowledge and proper worship of God was conceived of as being, not merely a religious duty, but something central to the health of the nation. The same idea echoes throughout the writings of the Old Testament prophets. How different is that to anything which crosses the minds of today’s politicians? For them religion is a personal little eccentricity, harmless in its way, but of no great importance to the nation at large.

It must be admitted that politicians today would have greater trouble than the absolute monarchies of ancient Israel in ensuring their populations were religiously literate. For one thing, it is not common in western democracies for there to be only one religion to which the entire population, at least in theory, subscribes. For another thing, they would probably also not helped (especially in America) if they had pastors telling their congregations that modern scientific theories were the work of the Devil.

Nevertheless, we live in a society which seems to think it can get by without any reference to God, and we have no reason to suppose that we will escape the consequences of that idolatry.